


Stutter

by uaigneach



Series: 2018 In-Class Works [2]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Car Accidents, Drabble, Gen, Stuttering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 11:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13386543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uaigneach/pseuds/uaigneach
Summary: just a drabble about Bill's stutter involving a car crash





	Stutter

**Author's Note:**

> lmao the prompt I got for this was literally just "once upon a time..."

There was once a young boy named Bill. Well, his parents had named him William, but his younger brother had always preferred the name Bill. You see, Bill was a marvelous young child. Very bright and very happy. He never cried and he laughed all the time. He’d reached the pinnacle f a happy child though, when his mother had told him that he would have a little brother. In that moment he’d stared in awe at his parents and promised right then and there to be the best damn brother there ever was.

His father told him not to swear.

Bill’s life couldn’t be happier. And he eager awaited the arrival of his baby brother – he just knew that it was going to be a boy! Only then would he be truly happy. But then, the accident happened.

They’d been driving with his mother to take her to see the doctor because she would be due in a week when a driver ran a red light and smashed right into the side of the car. It had been the side that both Bill and his dad had been n, so they suffered the brunt of the impact. The other car completely crushed the side of their car, effectively trapping Bill in the back and destroying his father’s left leg. His mother had been knocked unconscious, but was otherwise okay.

Of course at the time, Bill hadn’t know this. He’d hit his head off the side of the car and his hearing was messed up. Bill seemed to recall it felt very much like being under water. He’d been trapped in such a way that he couldn’t move much; his head stuck staring helplessly at the unmoving body of his heavily pregnant mother. He just stared wide eyed at the blood that leaked from her head and the water from beneath her.

His arms were pinned, he didn’t know what to do. He vaguely heard screaming in the distance and he realized that it was his father. He didn’t dare try to turn his head though, feeling a warmth seep down his own face. The seat belt had fallen off and now he was on the floor. He curled tighter into himself. He didn’t know what to do.

There was a distant wailing in the background – different than his father’s; muffled sirens. It felt like an eternity before the door beside his mother opened and someone pulled her out f the car. Even while know that these strange men dressed in odd uniforms are there to help, his heart rate climbed until he was in a full blown panic. He choked out a sob of a noise as he tried to say something, not being able to speak as he stared. His head hurt and his lungs were no longer working properly. He couldn’t breathe. He did not scream or cry. All he could do was stare wide eyed at nothing as the panic overwhelmed him. He hadn’t been aware when he was pulled out from the wreckage.

A cold sweat broke out on his brow as he was cradled in strong arms and removed carefully from the scrap metal of what used to be their car. He vaguely remembered being rushed to the hospital alongside both of his parents.

He thinks that he might have passed out shortly after arriving at the hospital, but the next thing he knows, he has a baby brother! Luckily, little George (that Bill will forever refer to as Georgie) had been unharmed and his mother would make a full recovery. The other car had hit the side that Bill and his father were on, so she just got jostled and the stress induced labor. (He still didn’t know what that meant.)

Bill’s father would take longer to recover because the door had been partially embedded in his thigh when the EMS had arrived. But he too would recover. It was Bill that was troubling everyone. His injuries had been mostly superficial and healed within a month or two, but ever since the incident, Bill who had been only 8 at the time had spoken with a n uncontrollable stutter. When his parents had talked to the doctors about it around a year later – when they’d finally had the time to notice Bill long enough t be vexed by his constant stuttering.

The doctors had informed them that it was most likely a side effect of the trauma of the car crash. Whether it was brain damage or just the child’s mind reacting to the trauma, they couldn’t tell. That would require more testing than the Denbroughs had said they were comfortable with.

So Bill continued to stutter. It got slightly better over the years as Georgie grew up, only surfacing every 5 words or whenever he was really nervous. Some syllables were harder to pronounce than others too. But all the progress he’d made had been completely thrown out the window when Georgie went missing.


End file.
